


Rauk Backstory

by McBeard_Creative



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Pathfinder (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Backstory, Dungeons & Dragons Campaign, Dungeons & Dragons Character Backstory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:22:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21993670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/McBeard_Creative/pseuds/McBeard_Creative
Summary: Backstory writeup for Rauk, half-orc barbarian of the Lesosian wilds.I originally built and wrote this character for my first DnD game ever, but it fell apart due to a problem player.  Now that I have a more stable group to play with I wanted to bring him back, so I rewrote it to fit in our world, tweaked the alignment to Neutral, and here we are.CONTENT WARNING: There is some touching on sexual assault.  There is no graphic depiction, and it's not perpetrated by the character.
Kudos: 2
Collections: A League of Their Own





	Rauk Backstory

Rauk’s life began with violence, as is usually the case for half-orcs. His mother was a seamstress by the name of Masilda and the lone survivor of a Breshalese wagon train destroyed in the foothills of central Lesosia. Her friends and family were slaughtered or carried off to be made into slaves, while she was used and discarded - ostensibly one of the lucky ones. Left for dead, she managed to track down one of their scattered horses the morning after the attack and complete the journey to the city of Boubea.

As a mercy, she had little trouble finding work and lodging in the city, as the Breshalese are known for their skills with fabric and Masilda was as talented as any. She was always aware that Boubea was likely to be a temporary stop however. When her fears were confirmed and she realized she had in fact become pregnant by her attacker, she put her plans into motion and left immediately with every coin she’d managed to save over the past month, fearing for her life if the nature of her child were to be discovered in a city so close to orc territory. Having been reasonably well-travelled as a result of her upbringing, she was aware that port cities were generally more tolerant places for people of any race, but especially those species with long-established reputations for violence. Thus, Masilda hired on as a mender and cook for a trade caravan heading south and then west along the coastline of Lesosia to the capital port city of Kofyae.

When the caravan arrived in Kofyae four months later there was no mistaking her condition. Still she had no issue finding work - a seamstress’ talents are always in demand and unwed mothers are never a rare feature in port towns. With her savings and her new wage, she was able to secure a small apartment in a relatively safe, if not affluent district of the city. She gave birth a mere two months after arriving, orcish pregnancies being significantly shorter than human ones.

The early years of Rauk’s life were uneventful, though his mother always deflected his questions as to his parentage. Friends and neighbors of course were able to fit these pieces together, but most had the good sense and decency to be tactful about it which primarily manifested as not addressing the matter at all. She was always quick to defend her son, even with violence when need be. By the age of 11 however he was a fair match for most full grown men, owing not only to his orc heritage but his mother’s own stout build. 

While Masilda tried to conceal her bitterness at her lot in life, and while Rauk never lacked for knowledge that he was loved while growing up, he did develop a rather dim view of the world at large. He came to view altruism as an ideal that while worthy, was typically impractical and would just get taken advantage of. He never developed great skill with words, though to his credit he was cognizant of this fact and smart enough to let other people do the talking when it mattered. 

At the age of 20 Rauk joined the city guard, which while not a glamorous or usually exciting job, was nevertheless fulfilling work with steady pay. Though there was bureaucracy to deal with and a moderate amount of corruption (as ever), he was able to spend his days helping people have peaceful lives and righting small wrongs throughout the city. He never advanced much in this career, and several years after joining grew fed up with the fact that fresh skinned young boys were being promoted over him - and paid better - in spite of his impeccable record and greater experience. He knew as well as everyone else that it had nothing to do with performance and everything with his skin and tusks. The bitterness over this treatment ate at him slowly.

Three years after he joined the guard, in 1705 Masilda married an artisan she had met at the market and moved with him to the other side of the world, a city called Hertsbury where he hoped to make his fortune. Rauk keeps in touch with her via letter, but her lack of presence in the city had severed the last strong tie keeping him there. As his job rarely provided justifiable opportunities for the violence his orc blood demands, Rauk had long taken to spending a portion of his leisure time fighting in local organizations. Through these, he was able to make the connections to gain alternative employment and leave Kofyae.

His martial prowess being well established in the arena, and his record in the guard marking him as trustworthy, Rauk had little trouble selling his axe escorting caravans from city to city. He grew bored of this quickly however, not the least due to the again relative lack of opportunities for violence. Spiralling somewhat from his apparent inability to enjoy peace, his disgust at the injustice of the world, and the loss of the most significant person in his life, he found a bandit group and signed on with them. They knocked off a few merchant wagons together, often getting away without even a fight due to his remarkably intimidating visage. Still, the outright theft from people who hadn’t wronged him just didn’t sit well in his mind, not least because of how his mother would have felt about it. 

One clear morning after he’d been with the bandits for several months, sounds of battle drifted into their camp, situated a short walk off of a road near the foothills of central Lesosia. Following the sounds to the road, their scout reported back a Breshalese wagon train under attack by hill orcs. The decision was made by the bandit leader to to wait until the orcs left and see what they could scavenge. They spread out and crept up to where they could get a look at the carnage. Human bodies lay dead on the ground and orcs were nearly done loading plunder onto their horses and departing toward the hills - indeed it looked like most had already left.

Rauk felt a stirring of emotion at this as he was aware of his mother’s background, and he had eventually learned how he was conceived too - and where. The stirring grew rapidly into a wave of conflicting emotions, and when the bandit leader indicated a pair of orcs making to rape one of the surviving women and made a lewd comment suggesting Rauk could have her after they left, his memory suffered a brief lapse. Rauk remembers the comment, and he remembers blinking his eyes a short time later and realizing that his hand was now holding the lifeless corpse of the man up against a tree by the neck. He couldn’t have been out too long, because the woman was still making an effort of running away from the two orcs. Seeing it, the emotion rose again but there was no confusion the second time, simply rage. Red suffused his vision and he discarded the dead man in favor of his greataxe. Charging into the wreckage of the wagon train he cleaved one of the attackers in two as he skidded to a halt. The other turned to fight but lost hist head in an instant, and neither had managed to yell for help.

When the remaining members of his bandit group joined him in the road and questioned where their captain was, Rauk found it more expedient to simply murder them immediately rather than give them time to spread out and discover what he’d done. He was eventually able to explain to the lone survivor, shattered with fear though she was, that he meant her no harm but she needed to leave now before the other orcs returned looking for their comrades. 

Once the woman was safely riding for the nearest city, Rauk surveyed the carnage and looted the bodies of his brief allies and enemies alike. There were two horses, sturdy and suitable to carry large warriors into battle. They responded when he called them in Orcish, a tongue he somewhat despises given what the nature of his heritage, but also took the effort to learn out of some perverse sense of obligation. Both were saddled, and one was strapped with a bow crafted from the horns of a large animal. This was intriguing, and testing the draw weight he found it to be remarkably robust. After putting an arrow cleanly through a moderately sized tree, Rauk decided he would be keeping the bow. He loaded such supplies as he had onto one of the horses and rode north, thinking to stay by himself in the wilderness for a time and try to determine who he wishes to be.


End file.
